I'm glad this isn't what my vows were like...

03 February 2011

Yesterday marked the kick-off of the Age of Innocence Read-a-long, hosted by bookworm meets bookworm, and this dutiful little bookworm started a-readin'. A mere 20 pages in, I stumbled across this passage that defines the roles and expectations of husband and wife in the late 19th century.

"The knowing people said it was Beaufort himself who trained the servants, taught the chef new dishes, told the gardeners what hothouse flowers to grow for the dinner-table and the drawing rooms, selected the guests, brewed the after-dinner punch and dictated little notes his wife wrote to her friends. If he did, these domestic activities were privately performed, and he presented to the world the appearance of a careless and hospitable millionaire strolling into his own drawing room with the detachment of an invited guest, and saying: 'My wife's gloxinias are a marvel, aren't they? I believe she gets them out from Kew.'"

I'm going to like this book, I can already tell, but I sure am glad that isn't what I was signing up for when I said "I will.*"